Clarke frets over Petroleum Industry Bill

Elder statesman Chief Edwin Clarke has said certain issues, which the newly revised Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) before the National Assembly fails to address may end up undermining and threatening the existence of the Niger Delta if not revisited.

The former Information commissioner expressed this concern while calling for additional provision to be included in the bill to take care of these issues.

Delivering a paper entitled: The PIB and the oil producing areas equation, at an Upstream and Downstream Oil and Gas expo in Abuja, Clarke said some of these issues centred on transparency, the environment and economic empowerment of the people of Niger Delta.

On transparency and accountability in the oil and gas industry, Clarke said they are provided for in the bill, particularly on tendering and licensing for oil blocks still fall short of what is required.

He said: ”The process of licensing and tendering in the oil industry is still not transparent enough even with the new PIB. I would have wanted the process to be made more open so that the owners of the oil blocks are made public. Such transparency will curb the corruption in the industry as well as increase the revenues accruable to the Federal Government. We need to have a competitive and open licensing and tender process for all the oil blocks and marginal fields as well as in the associated processes for granting licenses for crude oil lifting and other downstream activities. This I think would ensure better returns to the government.”

On protection of the environment, Clarke said what the new bill makes provision for is still a far cry to what is required for the mitigation of the level of degradation done to the environment.

Clarke said: “The damage done to the environment via oil and gas operations by the oil companies has been quite enormous and as a result something ought to be done either to reduce or stop the damage .The current issues of environment need to be addressed by putting in place measures to stop the activities of these oil companies that are destroying our environment and ecology. There is far less than the provision in the bill can offer. But an additional provision in the new bill would ensure that these measures are implemented in such a way that there are significant consequences for any organisation that continue to violate the law. The clean up and remediation activities must start in earnest while gas flaring and persistent repeated pollution must be made to stop.”

On empowerment of the people of the region, he noted that the new bill still leaves much to be desired, particularly on engaging Niger Deltans as stakeholders in the oil industry.

“There are still issues with the provision of the new PIB especially as it concerns the economic empowerment of the Niger Deltans. It would be good we have a quota system that measures the participation of Niger Delta indigenes in the organisations involved in the petroleum sector in the region including the IOCs, NNPC and indigenous oil companies. The new regulatory bodies proposed by this bill should also be subject to similar Niger Delta content requirement.”